“You need to fully inculcate your complete maternal self,” he said, between mouthfuls of a fine continental spread. “You need to nurture and give and embrace your true nature.” He paused, significantly, and swallowed. “This just came to me, a message to help you on this journey: start by buying me breakfast. Providing nourishment will allow you to reconnect with yourself.”

We were at The Park. I could have bought breakfast or I could have posted bail.

Well, I should have known better then than to set up an appointment with a holistic healer whose business card read: “Tarot, Hypnotism, Arts Therapy and African Voodoo”. Now, after a couple of years’ worth of questing and questioning, I do. Self-styled spiritualists of the small-time variety are common, ineffective and quite hilarious. The thing about surviving all of that existential anguish is that you’ll have very few tangible takeaways you can talk about afterwards – except the fun anecdotes you’ve collected from those who claimed to have answers for it.

One of my other favourites was the breathing exercise teacher who took a rather unsavoury interest in my toilet habits. “Did you oil your rectum today?” she asked each time I saw her. Taking my uncomfortable expression to be mere stupidity, she would then proceed to gesticulate, in detail, exactly how I ought to do this. I suppose I ought to be thankful that she didn’t take it upon herself to offer a comprehensive demonstration. I can’t say I felt the same hesitation toward the hot chakra cleanser, though.

Which brings me to: why was I prescribed ashwagandha for my insomnia without being informed that it was also the great Indian aphrodisiac? Between the hours I was keeping and the touted potency of that herb, I could have turned into some rampaging nocturnal succubus.

Which I avoided, I hasten to add, by virtue of developing an intense obsession with transcendental mysticism and the fine sciences of auguring the future through the study of the feng shui of fridge contents and the Facebook newsfeed. In fact, I learned during this period that I am so intensely obsessive because I am a Scorpio Rising, that too born in the anaretic degree. This also makes me vindictive, envious, secretive and paranoid. Now you know why I’m so popular.

All of this came, of course, thanks to my involvement with a self-professed visionary. She interpreted my dreams (“To dream of a cat indicates a craving for cheese”), she analysed my psychosomatic conditions (“A pain in the ass indicates grief over betrayal – or an unoiled rectum”) and ran zodiac compatibility tests on my suitors (“Oh what’s a little BO with such a spectacular Mars-Jupiter trine?”). She was as efficient as predictive text on a cellphone. She was oracle and Oprah combined. It all toppled like a house of archangel cards when, in the process of severing my auric cords to malevolent influences from my past, she accidentally singed my eyebrows. Astrally.

“Shame about the eyebrow – now how will you know where to tap to activate your acupressure points?” she said.

I know. Even excusing a little hyperbole, I should be a hardcore cynic by now. But some people are just incorrigible (like Scorpionic types). I’ve just learned that divinity doesn’t come neatly packaged. Aromatherapy oils, though, still do.

An edited version appeared in The New Indian Express. “The Venus Flytrap” is my column in the Zeitgeist supplement. Previous columns can be found here.